973.7L63 

PL569  „ 

A  Letter  of  Abraham  Lincolr 
m  reply  to  an  invitation  to  at- 
tend a  festival  in  honor  of  the 
birthday  of  Thomas  Jefferson 
(Apr. 6,  1859)   [printed  1923]  3pp. 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


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6        Lincoln's  Jefferson  Letter  No, 


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^  Letter   of 

ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

in  reply  to 

<iAn  Invitation  to  attend  a  Festival  in  Honor  of 
the  Birthday  of  Thomas  Jefferson 

Composed  direftly  from  the  original  letter,  now  in  the  John  Hay  Mem- 
orial J^ibrary  at  ^rown  University  y  and  twenty -five  copies  printed  in 
this  form  at  the  ^MoorsfaldTrefs,  Qhamplainy  J^  T.,  June  19,  1923 


Springfield,  Ills.  April  6,  1859 
Messrs.  Henry  L.  Pierce,  &  others. 
gentlemen 

Your  kind  note  inviting  me 
to  attend  a  Festival  in  Boston,  on  the  13th  Ins't  in 
honor  of  the  birth-day  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  was  duly 
received-  My  engagements  afe  such  that  I  can  not 
attend - 

Bearing  in  mind  that  about  seventy  years  ago,  two 
great  political  parties  were  first  formed  in  this  country, 
that  Thomas  Jefferson  was  the  head  of  one  of  them, 
and  Boston  the  head-quarters  of  the  other,  it  is  both 
curious  and  interesting  that  those  supposed  to  descend 
politically  from  the  party  opposed  to  Jefferson,  should 
now  be  celebrating  his  birth-day  in  their  own  original 
seat  of  empire,  while  those  claiming  political  descent 
from  him  have  nearly  ceased  to  breathe  his  name 
everywhere- 


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Remembering  too,  that  the  Jefferson  party  were 
formed  upon  their  supposed  superior  devotion  to  the 
personal  rights  of  [of]  men,  holding  the  rights  o^ prop- 
erty to  be  secondary  only,  and  greatly  inferior,  and  then 
assuming  that  the  so-called  democracy  of  to-day,  are 
the  Jefferson,  and  their  opponents,  the  an ti- Jefferson 
parties,  it  will  be  equally  interesting  to  note  how  com- 
pletely the  two  have  changed  hands  as  to  the  principle 
upon  which  they  were  originally  supposed  to  be  divided. 

The  democracy  of  to-day  hold  the  liberty  of  one  man 
to  be  absolutely  nothing,  when  in  conflid:  with  another 
man's  right  oi property-  Republicans,  on  the  contrary, 
are  for  both  the  man  and  the  dollars  but  in  cases  of 
conflid:,  the  man  before  the  dollar- 

I  remember  once  being  much  amused  at  seeing  two 
partially  intoxicated  men  engaged  in  a  fight  with  their 
great-coats  on,  which  fight,  after  a  long,  and  rather 
harmless  contest,  ended  in  each  having  fought  himself 
out  of  his  own  coat,  and  into  that  of  the  other-  If  the 
two  leading  parties  of  this  day  are  really  identical  with 
the  two  in  the  days  of  Jefferson  and  Adams,  they  have 
performed  about  the  same  feat  as  the  two  drunken 
men- 

But  soberly,  it  is  now  no  child's  play  to  save  the 
principles  of  Jefferson  from  total  overthrow  in  this 
nation. 

One  would  start  with  great  confidence  that  he  could 
convince  any  sane  child  that  the  simpler  propositions 
of  Euclid  are  true;  but,  nevertheless,  he  would  fail, 
utterly,  with  one  who  should  deny  the  definitions  and 


axioms-  The  principles  of  Jefferson  are  the  definitions 
and  axioms  of  free  society-  And  yet  they  are  denied, 
and  evaded,  with  no  small  show  of  success-  One  dash- 
ingly calls  them  "glittering  generalities;"  another 
bluntly  calls  them  "self  evident  lies";  and  still  others 
insidiously  argue  that  they  apply  only  to  "superior 


races  "- 


These  expressions,  differing  in  form,  are  identical 
in  objed  and  effed — the  supplanting  the  principles  of 
free  government,  and  restoring  those  of  classification, 
caste,  and  legitimacy-  They  would  delight  a  convoca- 
tion of  crowned  heads,  plotting  against  the  people- 
They  are  the  van-guard — the  miners,  and  sappers — of 
returning  despotism-  We  must  repulse  them,  or  they 
will  subjugate  us- 

This  is  a  world  of  compensations;  and  he  who  would 
he  no  slave,  must  consent  to  have  no  slave-  Those 
who  deny  freedom  to  others,  deserve  it  not  for  them- 
selves; and,  under  a  just  God,  can  not  long  retain  it. 

All  honor  to  Jefferson — to  the  man  who,  in  the 
concrete  pressure  of  a  struggle  for  national  independ- 
ence by  a  single  people,  had  the  coolness,  forecast,  and 
capacity  to  introduce  into  a  merely  revolutionary  doc- 
ument, an  abstrad:  truth,  applicable  to  all  men  and  all 
times,  and  so  to  embalm  it  there,  that  to-day,  and  in 
all  coming  days,  it  shall  be  a  rebuke  and  a  stumbling- 
block  to  the  very  harbingers  of  re-appearing  tyrany 
and  oppression- 

Your  obedient  Servant 

A.  Lincoln- 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLIN0I3-URBANA 


3  0112  050744645 


